@gpeel: "Hi all,
I was bored earlier tonight and I decided to tinker a bit with FreeBSD 6.4 on my Windows XP SP3 box.
In that machine, there is one SATA drive.
On that drive, there was about 100 GB of free space, so I decided to try putting FreeBSD 6.4 on it. 
During the install, I opted to use the Free BSD boot manage. The install went flawlessly.
The problem is, when I boot up I get:
F1 ??
F2 FreeBSD
F5 Disk1
F2, is obviously, the new installation of FreeBSD 6.4, which boots perfectly.
F5 is a spare SCSI disk connected to an Initio controller.
F1 is the probelem. Windose no longer boots. When I select F2, I simply get the cursor on a new line, and nothing happens.
Like this:
F1 ??
F2 FreeBSD
F5 Disk1
_
Any idea what I might need to do to make windows work again?
It may be worth mentioning, I had Norton GoBack running on the disk before I installed FreeBSD, although I am not aware if it does anything to the booting system.
All suggestions welcome,
-Grant"
    @kurtbuff: "<quote>
<url>
Find a bootable floppy image there that includes a DOS fdisk, and
write it out to a floppy disk.
Boot your machine with that floppy, and at the DOS prompt, type 'fdisk
/mbr' - it will write a standard boot sector, and Windows should boot
again.
Of course, this will not allow you to boot to your new FreeBSD
installation, but with other folks' help, you can probably overcome
that - probably with GRUB, or another boot manager.
Kurt"
    @steve: "<quote>
Technically (theoretically) speaking, using a Win32 boot disk to fdisk
/mbr, he should be able to re-initialize the FBSD boot loader by going
through the steps he did initially.
AFAIR, Symantec GoBack, along with many other 'in-disk' restoration
programs, overwrite the boot sector with its own code.
If the OP can boot back into Windows with the fdisk /mbr, he has likely
done both:
- broke his GoBack program's ability to recover, and;
- made it possible to restore the FBSD boot manager
If Windows boots after following Kurt's recommendation of restoring the
Windows MBR, back up your Windows system, then try FreeBSD again.
You sound courageous, give 'er!
Steve"
    @gpeel: "Can I use a windows install cd's "R" option to do the fdisk /mbr ?
-Grant
- Original Message - 
From: "Kurt Buff" <email_address>
To: "Grant Peel" <email_address>
Cc: <email_address>
Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 8:23 PM
Subject: Re: FreeBSD Boot Manager
<quote>"
    @gpeel: "So then,
IF we are able to restore the Windows MBR, and boot into windows, should we 
not be able to boot the machine with a bootable FreeBSD disk, then, use 
Sysinstall to restore the FreeBSD boot manager?
-Grant
- Original Message - 
From: "Steve Bertrand" <email_address>
To: "Kurt Buff" <email_address>
Cc: "Grant Peel" <email_address>; <email_address>
Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 8:33 PM
Subject: Re: FreeBSD Boot Manager
<quote>"
    @steve: "<quote>
I don't know.
It's been $years since I've had to use a Windows install CD for such a
thing.
If it's win32, my experience would have me recommend just booting from a
floppy of a win boot disk to restore the MBR. It's just quick that way.
If my memory serves right, even a win98 boot disk should work.
Why load up all of the unneeded Windows device drivers and other stuff,
if you can just 'fix' it?
IIRC, just to get to the `Recovery Console' (if you please) takes many,
many minutes.
Steve"
    @gpeel: "Hi all,
For those that have been following this thread:
I now have Norton GoBack uninstalled and un-hooked from the MBR
-Had to go to Symantec and get a rescue disk,
-The rescue disk tried to un-hook GOBAck from the MBR,
    -It found the MBR borken (due to the FreeBSD Boot Manager install),
        -So the rescue disk ran all night restoring the original C-Drive,
-As of this morning, I once again have a bottoable windows system,
-FreeBSD 6.4 is intalled, but,
-I have not boot manager so I cant get to the FReeBSD installation.
Can someone (please!) explain how to install the FreeBSD boot manager again?
THanks all,
-Grant
- Original Message - 
From: "Steve Bertrand" <email_address>
To: "Grant Peel" <email_address>
Cc: "Kurt Buff" <email_address>; <email_address>
Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 9:39 PM
Subject: Re: FreeBSD Boot Manager
<quote>"
    @michaelcopeland: "why not just add loader or whatever to the windows boot loader.. unless 
you specifically need fbsd boot manager
<quote>"
    @gpeel: "Hi Mike,
I am not at all sure whate you are suggesting here?
What I am asking, is, somehting like:
Can I reboot the machine with the FreeBSD install disk, and using the 
sysinstall utility, reinstall the freebsd boot manger so I wind up with:
F1 Windows
F2 FreeBSD
F5 Disk1
-Grant
- Original Message - 
From: "Michael Copeland" <email_address>
To: "Grant Peel" <email_address>
Cc: <email_address>
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 9:44 AM
Subject: Re: FreeBSD Boot Manager
<quote>"
    @michaelcopeland: "also, doing it the way i suggested will still give you the option to 
re-select windows, and then from there right back to freebsd is you 
accidentally hit the wrong button. creates a nice loop.
eg: machine boots, windows shows you "Windows XP" or "FreeBSD"
you select FreeBSD, you get the menu you want from there
F1 FreeBSD
F2 Microsoft Windows
F5 DiskX
Selecting windows will take you back to the windows loader, and then you 
could select windows or freebsd.
<quote>"
    @michaelcopeland: "well, there are many "easy" ways. one is to install an IFS version of 
UFS, if you're using ufs. that way windows can read the ufs slices and 
you can grab your file that way.
<quote>"
    @jerrymc: "<quote>
You should be able to do the same thing with a FreeBSD fixit.
Sounds like something got corrupted with the MBR or a boot record
somewhere.   But, the FreeBSD MBR should boot XP just fine.  The
machine I am typing on is dual boot with FreeBSD and XP (plus a Dell
maintenance slice).    All boot with no problem using the FreeBSD MBR.
So, using fdisk to reinstall the MBR might help.
////jerry    "
    @dfunk6: " From the point the message below, I would set up freebsd to give me a 
graphical gui so I can use gparted to unflag the bsd partition as boot 
and flag the windows as boot.  Before restarting, I would copy 
/boot/boot1 to somewhere accessible by windows named something like 
freebsd.boot.
Then I'd set up the NT boot loader:
    right click on my computer... properties... advance tab... startup 
and recovery settings... click edit and add line
c:\freebsd.boot="FreeBSD" -> filename of what /boot/boot1 was copied to.
This should have gotten to dual booting windows and freebsd, but using 
the nt boot loader.
 Original Message 
Subject: 	FreeBSD Boot Manager
Date: 	Thu, 8 Jan 2009 20:17:15 -0500
From: 	Grant Peel <email_address>
To: 	<email_address>
Hi all,
I was bored earlier tonight and I decided to tinker a bit with FreeBSD 6.4 on my Windows XP SP3 box.
In that machine, there is one SATA drive.
On that drive, there was about 100 GB of free space, so I decided to try putting FreeBSD 6.4 on it. 
During the install, I opted to use the Free BSD boot manage. The install went flawlessly.
The problem is, when I boot up I get:
F1 ??
F2 FreeBSD
F5 Disk1
F2, is obviously, the new installation of FreeBSD 6.4, which boots perfectly.
F5 is a spare SCSI disk connected to an Initio controller.
F1 is the probelem. Windose no longer boots. When I select F2, I simply get the cursor on a new line, and nothing happens.
Like this:
F1 ??
F2 FreeBSD
F5 Disk1
_
Any idea what I might need to do to make windows work again?
It may be worth mentioning, I had Norton GoBack running on the disk before I installed FreeBSD, although I am not aware if it does anything to the booting system.
All suggestions welcome,
-Grant"
    @jerrymc: "<quote>
Boot fixit from CD.   
  Do:
fdisk -B      
  or maybe you need:
fdisk -iB
Then try to reboot.
These should only affect sector 0  which is where the MBR goes.
What is screwing you up is that Norton GoBack.   I haven't used it, 
but it probably works like previous recovery utilities for Norton.
It rewrites the MBR to only boot its own stuff instead of a standard
system boot and clobbers anything else there.    It is supposed to
stash the original MBR somewhere and later put it back.  But it 
doesn't always work.   If it is initiated twice in a row, for example,
it saves the MBR and writes its own.   Then the next time it saves
the MBR (which is its own) which clobbers the original that it stashed
away and then writes its own MBR in the stash, thus making both copies
be its own MBR and the original is trashed.   
This is just one example of the way it can screw up that I have 
encountered (- and fixed using the FreeBSD fixit, even though it 
was an all Windows machine with no FreeBSD on it).   There are
probably more scenarios that end up with a similarly trashed MBR
from GoBack.
So, just try getting FreeBSD fixit to fix it.
////jerry"
    @jerrymc: "<quote>
Yup.   But, as I said in a previous post, use fixit and fdisk.
The F1 choice will probably say either  DOS  or  ??  instead
of Windows.    DOS if it is a FAT or FAT32 file system, ?? if
it is an NTSF file system.
////jerry"
    @jerrymc: "<quote>
Maybe.    But, MS software is notorious for not recognizing any
other OSen nor being able to boot them   So, use the FreeBSD fdisk
which will plant the FreeBSD MBR.
////jerry"
    @gpeel: "Hi all,
Jusat to answer Mike's question, nothing is working to get the MBR and 
Windows boot back.
I ahve been to the windows recovery console many times and ran the Fixboot, 
Fixmbr commands, being very meticulous about the paramaters etc.
I ahve also tried reinstalling the FreeBSD boot manager, and rerunning the 
Norton GoBack unhook.
When I run the recovery console, and do the fixmbr, I get messages about the 
current MBR not being standard, and that if I install a new one, I may loose 
the partitions. So far, that is not true. The windows partition is still 
there, but not being used to boot.
Fortuneatley, I can see my windows partition in KNoppix, so I am in the 
process of getting the data moved to a backup drive. Indeed, I am writting 
this email through Konquerer!
Thank god for live file systems.
-Grant
On Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:30:53 -0500, Michael Copeland wrote
<quote>
wrote:
FreeBSD 
try 
install 
simply 
anything 
to "<email_address>"
to "<email_address>"
to "<email_address>""
    @jerrymc: "<quote>
If you read through my post on this, note the scenario I narrated.
It is quite possible that every time you run that GoBack thing, it
is putting back the wrong MBR from its corrupted stash.
////jerry"
    @gpeel: "Jerry,
Maybe true. When this all started I used the ISO disk from the Symantec site 
to remove GoBack. I assumed in doing so ('unhooking GoBack from the MBR), 
that it would replace the original windows one.
It may also be worth noting that this disk -had- a recovery partition on it 
once upon a time. I have not idea weather this plays a parts in the latest 
woes.
Either way, I need to save the data (as I mentioed \I am doing), dd the disk 
to clear everything, and reinstall.
No biggies since I have not lost any data :-)
Thanks for all the help and I ideas though, this has been a learning safari!
-Grant
- Original Message - 
From: "Jerry McAllister" <email_address>
To: "gpeel" <email_address>
Cc: "Jerry McAllister" <email_address>; "Michael Copeland" 
<email_address>; <email_address>
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2009 1:25 PM
Subject: Re: FreeBSD Boot Manager
<quote>"
    @tl32: "<quote>
I know it won't help you now, but for the general case:  It is a very
good idea to save MBRs.  Restoring an MBR is a quick and painless way to
bring back a former state of affairs.
    Tore"
    @rock_on_the_web: "<quote>
If memory serves, I believe there is an option to simply go to cli and
all the tools are there on the cd ready for you. I could be wrong or
outdated though- probably both... :)"
    @rock_on_the_web: "<quote>
Not a chance- why do you think you have to install Window$ first? Gates
and his cronies aren't going to make it easy for you to install free
software, and so they make it as hard as possible hoping you'll install
Window$ and give up.
I haven't heard of anywhere that any of the freeloaders (pardon the pun)
that can boot a M$ system- only paid for software like Bootmagic. Or use
the M$ loader in window$ to boot other systems- strange that it should
be able to do that, but then most of the OSS is KISS based rather than
the rigmarole M$ go to.
Again, I could be outdated and/or wrong on this, but I doubt it has
changed."
    @jerrymc: "<quote>
I don't think you read what he wrote carefully.
You are right in your statement about MS having to be first and
not accomodating any other system.   But, for those very reasons,
his statement is correct.   He has Win already on the disk.  He
wants to use the _FreeBSD_ system to write the _FreeBSD_ MBR
which will happily boot both MS-Win and FreeBSD.  
I boot MS quite regularly with the FreeBSD MBR.  It is the standard
recommended way of doing a dual boot.   The machine on which I am 
presently typing is dual boot with MS-XP and FreeBSD and it uses only 
the FreeBSD MBR with no problem.
////jerry"
    @jerrymc: "<quote>
You can make it happen, but it is much more straightforward and less
troublesome to leave the MS stuff as the first slice on the disk
and put the other things after it reguardless of which MBR you use.
////jerry"
    @michaelcopeland: "<quote>
That is completely off the wall wrong. You can install FreeBSD first and 
then Windows and you CAN fix the boot issue yourself with the cd OR you 
can add it to windows loader. you're just wrting the bootsector. not 
hard to do."
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